The late return of Sherlock Holmes
by GirlWhoLoved
Summary: Sherlock's return to 221B Baker Street is a bit different from what you might expect.


**Now, this story was inspired by the song "Keep the Streets empty for me" by Fever Ray. Since I was listening to the song the whole time I was writing this, the modd of the story and of the song are very similiar. I recommend listening to the song. Other than that, I have nothing more to say aprt from the sad fact that I don't own Sherlock or any of its characters, they all belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the BBC, Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. **

~...~

The tall man was walking down the street. It was grey and rainy, just like London had always been.

Moody London.

A bitter wind moved the detective's dark curls. He was getting wet, but he didn't care. He knew he'd be soaking wet when he arrived, but it didn't matter. Not anymore.

There were hardly any people in the streets but Sherlock didn't care. He didn't even look at them, but when he had tried he couldn't have seen their faces properly.

But for now he'd turn his full attention to John.

He deserved it.

It was strangely quiet. Sherlock didn't know any more if that was normal or not, he'd simply deleted it. Why would he need the information whether the street was usually loud or not?

Exactly, he wouldn't need it.

It became darker, and the street lamps went on, one after another. But they couldn't really dissipate the strange twilight. Slowly wafts of mist gathered and made the whole surreal scene even scarier.

But once again Sherlock didn't care.

Baker Street.

At last he was in the right street; he wasn't sure why it had taken him so long to find it again.

Mycroft had been right once in his life.

It had been too long.

"I'm sorry John," Sherlock mumbled into the fog.

221b Baker Street.

Sherlock remembered the time he had left the cab the day John had looked at the flat.

He smiled a small, sad smile.

Should he knock?

Would someone open?

Would Mrs Hudson be there?

Taking a deep breath Sherlock just reached for the door knob and turned it.

He hadn't been sure if the door would open, but it did.

Slowly he entered the house. It was eerily quiet and there seemed to be more shadows than last time he had been here. But maybe it was just because of the weather.

Mrs Hudson obviously wasn't here. Maybe he could see her some other time.

Sherlock began to climb the stairs that creaked loudly under his feet, as if they hadn't been used in a while. Ignoring the noise the stairs made, he climbed up the last few steps until he stood in front of the door that led to the flat he had once lived in with John.

The detective closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath then he opened them again and reached out to the door handle. It felt cold and a shudder went through Sherlock's body.

Gently he opened the door and looked inside. The first thing he noticed was that the colours seemed to be bleached out, making everything equally as grey as it was outside in the streets.

Apart from that everything was as he remembered it.

And there he was.

John.

The ex-army doctor sat on his favourite armchair, reading the newspaper, a cup of steaming tea next to him.

When Sherlock entered and closed the door behind him, he lowered the newspaper.

"Sherlock. You took your time." John's voice seemed to be quite loud in the silent room.

"I'm sorry, John. I'm sorry for what I made you do." Sherlock looked on the floor.

The newspaper rustled. Steps coming towards him. The stench of tea, aftershave and just John. The sound of breathing near to him. Sherlock looked up into the dark blue eyes of his blogger. John's eyes were, unlike the rest of this whole scenery, not bleached out. They were startlingly blue.

John didn't say anything.

"I'm sorry, John," Sherlock whispered.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't. He would have killed you." At the thought of John dying Sherlock's eyes filled with a sad expression. Pain could be seen woven into the sadness as well, pain and guilt.

John took another step towards him, the floor beneath him creaking faintly. Then he pulled Sherlock in an embrace.

Sherlock hadn't noticed it wasn't very warm until John hugged him. The doctor was cosily warm. Hesitantly the detective put his arms around the other man as well.

"Thank you," John mumbled.

Sherlock frowned in confusion. "Why do you thank me?"

"For coming here. Thank you for coming here," the blogger explained.

Sherlock was silent for a moment so that the only sound in the room was their breathing. A part of Sherlock's mind wondered about the fact that the raindrops splashing against the window didn't make the noise they should.

"I couldn't have gone on without you. That's why I came here."

After another few minutes they spent in silence just enjoying the embrace, Sherlock pulled back and looked at John expectantly.

"So… are we going to stay here?" He asked.

John smiled a small smile and shook his head. "No, we need to go somewhere else. I just waited here for you. Come on, we go."

John took a few steps and reached out his hand when Sherlock didn't follow him immediately.

The detective smiled and took it.

Together they walked down the creaking stairs again and left the house. The weather hadn't changed. It was still raining and it was still windy.

Sherlock turned up the collar of his coat against the wind.

John pointed at a light at the end of the street. "That's where we're going."

The other man just nodded and wondered if he had overlooked the light when had come here or if it just hadn't been there yet.

The nearer they got, the warmer it became.

Before they finally stepped into the light, the detective and his blogger looked at each other and smiled.

~...~

Mycroft Holmes put down his mobile phone and rubbed his eyes tiredly. Then he got up and set out for 221B Baker Street.

The police were already there, but when they saw who he was they let him through without complaint.

Slowly Mycroft made his way up to his brother's flat. The door was open and just a few policemen were there.

There, on the floor, lay Dr John Watson and Sherlock Holmes, dead. Both of them had shot themselves in the head with Dr Watson's gun.

His brother's blogger had been dead before the detective, there was maybe an hour difference, it wasn't sure yet how much time exactly had passed.

There was nothing Mycroft could do here anymore so he turned around and left the house again.

A few days later he watched how the two coffins were slowly lowered into the ground, next to each other.

~...~

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